www.insurancenewsnet.com/article.asp?n=1&neID=200703055 -
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Published on: 3/12/2007
Last Visited: 3/12/2007
Hartford is one bank that is recognizedas one of the latest in this area, and with that in mind, we arefortunate to have with us John Walters and Sean O'Hara.
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JOHN WALTERS, PRESIDENT, US WEALTH MANAGEMENT GROUP, THE HARTFORD:Thank you, Nigel, and good morning everybody.
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SEAN O'HARA, MANAGING DIRECTOR, PLANCO: Thanks, John.
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There are, as John said, many different aspects to theVA and mutual fund business that separate organizations.We believethat, fundamentally, one of the things that we do pretty well andfairly consistently is wholesale these products, and I think it comesfrom where we came from.
I started at Planco in 1985 as John said, as we see the numbers popup on the slide.When I started, there were 14 wholesalers at Planco;I was one of those 14 people.Today we have 292 wholesalers here inthe United States, we've got 8 in Canada, 33 in the UK, and 84 inJapan.And what we're trying to do is use our model, our distributionmodel, our wholesaling strength and carry that forward to all theseadditional markets, and it's worked out very well for us, and we'llspend some time talking about how these other markets have reacted towhat we do towards the end.
As John said, Planco was a private company.
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We're involved with the folks in the home office on productdevelopment and service and those things, but to the extent that theyimpact us and they impact us, the products that we sell throughfinancial advisers and as John mentioned, we got purchased in 1998.
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JOHN WALTERS: Let me just wrap this up with a couple of quickcomments.
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JOHN WALTERS: Not from Nigel, Nigel is on the mike.
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JOHN WALTERS: Question?
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JOHN WALTERS: So the question is, I guess, broadly, just to handicapwhat it looks like down the road for VAs versus funds.
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JOHN WALTERS: The only other point I would maybe add to that is --the challenge that we're having in the advice space today with thevariable annuity is that the brokers still do not really have a planfor dealing with distribution.
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JOHN WALTERS: So the question was the increase of redemption rates atthe Hartford over the last couple of years; what were the realdrivers of that, and where do we see it going?
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JOHN WALTERS: So let me take the first one.
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JOHN WALTERS: And to finish the question, do we plan to be a leaderor more a follower.
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JOHN WALTERS: Yes?
NIGEL: Just wanted to say that this is your last question, that'sall.
JOHN WALTERS: Last question?
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JOHN WALTERS: So the question is, what do we think that the industryneeds to do to expand sales and the supply of producers?
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JOHN WALTERS: And I think the other thing that would help theindustry, I think, in a perverse way, is if everyone took some timeoff from product development.